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Tuesday, April 16, 2013

‘KARIBU
Jiji la Arusha!’ reads a sign at the highway bridge crossing River Nduruma in
in Meru District, indicating that it was the gate into the City.

Like
many rivers originating from the foot of Mount Meru, the Nduruma River valley
happens to be a deep gorge with steep walls, featuring naturally polished
smooth rocks. The river itself is not that deep with its water making circular
waves around the smooth, but hard stones. However, if somebody tries to look from
above, the river is in most areas shrouded by thick branches of trees, leaves
and lush grass cover. Sounds like an idyllic place right? Wrong! Nduruma is one
of the two most mysteriously feared rivers in the Meru District which flows
from Tanzania’ second highest peak, cutting across the Arusha-Moshi highway and
claiming lives en-route. With an unknown length, River Nduruma, is also a
symbolic feature.

The
water body historically separates the Meru people and the Waarusha community,
tribes that at one time in the past were implacable enemies. When travelling
from Moshi, heading for Arusha, one enters the precinct of the Wameru people
soon after crossing the Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) junction
entering the King’ori area and the highway territory covers Kikatiti, Maji-ya-Chai,
Usa-River, Leganga, Tengeru, Kambi-ya- Chupa.

The path
terminates at the Nduruma River Bridge where the Waarusha territory takes over
from Kwa-Mrefu, Ngulelo, Kimandolu, Sekei, Sanawari, all the way to Mianzini.
Sakina, is an island filled with mixed people but along the way to Nairobi the
original Maasai settlements take over from Kwa-Idd and Ngaramtoni going on to
Oldonyo-Sambu, Longido and Namanga as well as across the border into Kajiado
Kenya via Bisil.

When new
age preachers started making rounds here, River Nduruma gained another title:
‘The Devil’s River,’ on the belief that that it was haunted by evil spirits
because of the series of accidents taking place on bridges that that cross it.

Among
the most serious was the 2009 multiple car accidents when a semi-trailer truck,
a passenger bus, a van and a pickup for some unexplained reasons, crashed into
each other on River Nduruma before dropping into the deep gorge below. At least
25 people perished. Three years previously in 2006, another bridge along the
same River Nduruma, in Mbuguni area, claimed the lives of 56 people who were
riding on a Toyota DCM Minibus, carrying 72 passengers for its capacity of 35.
Some passengers were reportedly sitting on the roof luggage carrier because the
vehicle was jam packed with people and goods. When it swerved at the narrow
bridge, it plunged into the river. Practically, every few weeks as a vehicle
either falls into the gorge.

Three
years previously (2003), right on Nduruma Bridge, a Scania coach belonging to
Mkwema Bus Transport, speeding to Dar-es-Salaam early in in the morning, was
involved in a head-on collision with a Toyota-Coaster Minibus travelling from
Moshi. A total of 23 passengers were decimated on spot. All the accidents,
according to crackpot theorists, had something to do with evil powers that that
have haunted the Nduruma River since the time ‘‘the Devil discovered’’ Arusha.

History
has it that, before the mainstream, commercial religions found their way into
Africa, local communities had never had the term ‘Devil’ or ‘Satan’ in in their
vocabularies even though indigenous religions existed and people believed in in
the supreme ‘God!’ The ‘Devil’ or ‘Satan’, therefore, including the one who
allegedly wreak havoc at River Nduruma, must have been imported here alongside
the second-hand religions of ‘Christendom’ and ‘Islam,’ that got shipped here
by early sea-faring merchants.

The ‘‘devil’’
at Nduruma therefore is certainly busy. Every few weeks a car falls into the
river valley. There are times when vehicles crash into each other on the bridge,
or knock pedestrian. If recent cases are anything to go by, cars have also been
erupting into flames around the area. Speculations have it that if a car
crashes onto the right side of the Nduruma Bridge, (left if the car is
travelling from Moshi) nobody inside will die. However, should the accident
occur on the left gorge (right from Moshi), then then the disaster will be enormous.

Believe it or not but there was
a time my family believed there is a devil lurking in the Nduruma. My late
grand farther mysteriously died there on his way back home. My Dad once had a
bad accident colliding with a cargo truck while driving to Mbuguni. He was not
that physically injured but he was shocked, for a whole week he didn’t talk. I
think he thought he was dying like his farther.